I have been chosen to take part in The School for Social Entrpreneurs (SSE).  The school was founded in 1997 by Michael Young (Lord Young of Dartington), a social innovator who’d previously launched the Consumers’ Association, the Open University and around 40 other organisations. I’m a big fan of the Open University, Lord Michael Young was clearly a person ahead of his own time, he has created so many opportunities for so many people.

I’m keen to meet my class of 17 other would-be social entrepreneurs and to find  out what their plans are but also slightly nervous… as one kind person put it “Can you sit still for a full school day, Emma?” Well, that’s going to be one of the challenges but like all good pupils I will endeavour to do my best! And will I be allowed to tweet in class??

I’m going to move from being a Freelancer to a Social Entrepreneur with help and inspiration from SSE .. though inbetween times I’ll no doubt be a freelance social entrepreneur! The ideas are all in the pipeline, exciting things are happening and it will be very interesting to see where I am in a year’s time, of course, it’s all in the digital realm, obviously!  It’s fantastic that we have this opportunity in Suffolk; I’m really looking forward to making the most of it.

Will keep you updated!

I casually interviewed mum friends re gaming/ xbox kinect beforehand and crowdsourced some opinions on Twitter. The results were overwhelmingly positive towards Xbox Kinect. The mums wouldn’t have chosen the XBox themselves as the cost would have put them off initially in comparison to other gaming systems so the XBox had arrived courtesy of Dad/ Kids vote. However once the Xbox had taken up residence in the family home they were now changing opinions – as one mum expressed it “My order of preference for activities at home goes like this:

no.1 Be outside doing something, no.2 Be inside making something, no.3 Go on the Xbox, no.4 Watch TV as a final resort, whereas previously TV and computer games were on a par for last resort.”

Interesting.

Our role as parents is to equip our children with the life skills they need to survive once they leave the family unit and the majority of parents would agree that being physical outside, making stuff/ crafts, attending school, socialising with real people in the real world, learning about healthy food etc all fit this bill. But, we struggle with describing gaming and TV as activities which are “useful” to our children and generally, struggle to convince our children that they should spend less time gaming/watching TV and more time being active and/ or creative, learning from the myriad of opportunities which are available to our extremely fortunate offspring.

In my Twitter conversations it came up that it wasn’t always “gaming” which had negative overtones as far as parents were concerned but more often the content of some of the games. Stereotyping of genders and races were flagged up – too many “perfect” female bodies and also the levels of violence depicted.

So I haven’t really played any computer games recently, apart from a brief flirtation with Angry Birds, the last time I seriously indulged in hours of gaming was a while ago when I was so obsessed I used to dream about Tetris bricks and blocks. I just wanted the top score in the student union, no big deal. And Street Fighter, which was fairly communal. Do I play computer games with my kids? Not since they learnt how to navigate a pc sufficiently well that I didn’t have to keep interfering. Do my kids play computer games? Yes, on my phone, ipad, laptop, friends consoles and gaming systems. Do I check what games they have played? Not always. Have they been exposed to games with ridiculous levels of violence? I’m sure the 11 & 9 year olds have been at friend’s houses. Do I discuss with them that I think the levels of violence in those games are ridiculous? Yes.

Back to the event! We had a good round table discussion with Kudo during which good questions were asked by mums about the levels of “control” avavilable on the XBox. Basically each member of the family can have a different account and different levels of access can be granted to each family member – e.g. no 18 games, no 15 rated films etc AND there is a “time-out” control so kids can play – a time can be agreed e.g 30 mins after which the XBox switches off, no arguments ( you hope!) It’s also possible to access a history to check what was played on, for how long. Sounds good.

My own questions at the event and thoughts around gaming /game content stem from an inspiring TED talk I saw a while ago from Jane McGonigal she wants us to increase our game playing online from 3 billion hours a week to 21 billion hours a week in order to solve some of the huge challenges and obstacles facing humanity over the next century. I love this kind of “out there” thinking. Cooperation, collaboration and inspiration are some of the skills she quotes that gamers learn but also they become, through hours of parctice “virtuosos” in their field… the question is what field? Strikes me as unharnessed, unparalleled opportunity for learning. Apparently the average american child will have spent 10,000 hours gaming by the age of 21.. approx the same amount of time spent in full time education and the same amount of time Malcolm Gladwell, he of Tipping Point fame, claimed that we need (10,000 hours) of study by the age 0f 21 to become a master in our chosen subject. What an opportunity!!! McGonigal cites four attributes which she feels gamers have become masters of: urgent optimism, social fabric, blissful productivity and epic meaning. You’ll have to watch the video to see the full definition but effectively these are all attributes I would like to encourage in my children. She also mentions games she has been involved in creating at the Institute of the Future namely World Without Oil, the important part being that participants in the game kept the “good” habits they picked up during game playing over 3 years afterwards.

So here we go, I would agree that I would like my children to be involved in this type of potentially “world changing” gaming, “social” gaming at it’s best.. learning transferable skills which have the potential to have postive real life impact not only on their lives but on the lives on others. And when I put this to Kudo at XBox he responded very positively that “the future games we are planning focus on getting families to play together and creating positive real life social impact”. That’s a future of gaming I am looking forward to and given Kudo’s interaction via video screen with the kids at the event (see photos below) maybe that’s something he will manage to achieve.

Let’s not skirt around the fact that we know we’re being sold to and Microsoft have realised the potential to be gained in making gaming a “good” family activity, instead, let’s be more vocal and guide Microsoft by telling them what games would convince us to buy into their products.. This is what the companies of the future are supposed to be about: listening and creating products consumers want rather than peddling us something we don’t want or need with glam advertising. So if Microsoft want to sit up and listen that has to be a good thing.

After the debate we headed off to play ..obviously the boys had a whale of a time and there was no time limit this time round as they played on the new Stars Wars Kinect game, the new Sports season 2, Forza 4  and more – not due out until the autumn

Not having a “controller” is amazing, one of those “ooh, the future is here” kind of moments. Having your legs measured in “Your Shape, fitness evolved” was slightly odd and I’m afraid @emermccourt and I did relapse into photocopier phenomenon mode at one point. I must also mention that I played on “Gears of War 3″ (see photo below) I thought I should..but after the freedom of Kinect suddenly being forced to twiddle buttons was annoying and as for the level of violence, um, I really wasn’t horrified. Shooting at weird monsters ( some of which I couldn’t tell whether they were my comrades or not, obviously the scuttling large woodlice weren’t but…) and having them explode in blood honestly wasn’t that bad. Though clearly a very addictive game for some (see below) I doubt I’ll spend much more time on it!

So, as for the XBox itself, well, it looks like it’s aiming to be your family portal to the world of electronic entertainment, whether it’s computer games, the latest film releases, tv, music or social media it’s wrapping it all in one accessible package which could be difficult to resist.

My impression days later is that Kinect is truly aiming to be a more interactive family experience which has the potential to introduce kids, and families, to a positive side of gaming. By this I mean it could seek to regain the shared experience of family groups of all ages & sizes playing together and enjoying time together but in a very much 21st Century style as opposed to ( but still to be enjoyed!) playing cards, dominoes,  scrabble, or barn dancing (for example!)  together.. which to the yoof of today may seem old fashioned activities but the sharing, the competition, the challenges and the fun are experiences we want to have with our families as they create harmony and bonding in the longer term. So, parents – get up and play! By all means keep forcing your kids to play cards and scrabble but engage with them in the medium of their time too.

For my own part the XBox can stay. We’ll experiment.. as a family. That’s quite a step for a family which doesn’t have a TV but I’m keen to have greater regulation over my children’s computer gaming experiences, the less YouTube is involved and dodgy pop-ups the better, as far as I am concerned. When they are older – well, that’s up to them but for the time being I am going to get involved and attempt to guide them as well I can. I sat through the new Transformers in 3D with them on Saturday evening and I have to admit I enjoy being forced to do this stuff I wouldn’t actually choose to do, so if they want to laugh at me doing “Dance Central” bring it on!

My thanks to LadyGeek who continue to break down barriers where it comes to stereotypical views of women and technology.

See more  PHOTOS from the event, some are slow mo shots and some great cartoons from @drawnalism

Below are some quotes (to me!) on Twitter from parents.. Dear Microsoft: Please read!!

@emmajell Games shd be Social, challenging, teach how to win & lose, planning, numeracy & literacy,  concentration etc

@emmajell How about Angry Birds with overarm bowling action?

@emmajell it just needs to make clever games, less relentless violence, more problem solving, more story, lots of action and girls will like

@emmajell but the last thing we need is a chick lit approach to gaming. The best games, like best novels and films, will have wide appeal

@emmajell We need to move on from the digital equivalent of guns and doll’s houses.

@emmajell  they all look like Lara Croft #womenstereotypedingaming

@emmajell It’s not about avoiding the wrong games as much as finding the right ones.

@emmajell need some female protagonists. No reason why detective in next LA Noire type game can’t be a woman.

But some still think “@emmajell  These games are corrupting kids at their most sensitive time in life!!”

Very interesting research on Children’s motivations for game playing – plus thoughts on “how to maximize potential benefits and to identify and minimize potential harms” which must be the modern day parent’s mantra

Unusually we do not possess a TV at home, we took the decision upon moving house a few years ago that we would do away with the traditional viewing of TV as a family activity or children babysitter. A number of factors encouraged us in this direction: the house needed work and there wasn’t an obvious place to position the TV,  we had noticed too, particularly in our  eldest son, a tendency for kids to be so focused on the TV that when it came to switch off time they seemed to struggle to reobtain social skills. If a child is tired then shouldn’t they learn to take time out and rest rather physically rest their body but make their tired brains keep on working to digest tv content? And in our previous home the TV would go on in the evening as soon as the kids were in bed – as a form of relaxation, but most of our adult time spent watching the TV we were on laptops at the same time so it was simply droning away in the background – so why not listen music instead?

I also thought of all the time I had wasted at the end of a school day staring at the TV screen watching neighbours and Home & Away (to name but one useless programme) — WHY??? What did I learn? What could I have learnt if I hadn’t been staring at it all those days, weeks, months? The bad habits continued at University .. Neighbours after lunch – again Why?? It was just a huge distraction preventing me from doing something more useful and it wasn’t as if I didn’t have anything better to do… I certainly watched less tv than many of my peers, whose conversation seem to revolve around various programmes I had never heard of/ wasn’t allowed to watch (!) and I have never suffered from an addiction but I feel relief at having banished the concept of neverending broadcast tv blasting around this household.

Don’t get me wrong we don’t brag about it ( it still makes us social lepers!) and we do watch TV via iplayer and the like but it’s a rare occurrance and WE CHOOSE from the available content what we would like to watch which is a very different concept to growing up in the 80′s… Then when we have watched said programme we don’t go hunting for something else to watch – we turn it off Amazing – just like that. Which goes to show you can change your viewing habits.

Plus there are now so many more diverse ways of being electronically entertained than we had in the 80′s: many, many more TV channels, the entire World Wide Web with all it’s information and applications, a vast array of computer games/ gaming systems, access to more films than ever..

Having no TV still freaks people out though, it’s one of those repetitive conversations I have regularly at parties “But how do you cope?” parents demand..  

If you are interested in getting involved with any of the above email: team@mashupevent.com

Just launching InDigital which has been a collaboration of a number of professionals working “in digital”. We figured everyone needs a place to find suppliers with different specialities and it would be a fantastic place for potetial clients to post projects. Whether you are looking for hardware expertise, iphone/ android/ wordpress developers, augmented reality specialists, graphic designers, photographers, PR or marketing you should be able to find someone to help you with your project from InDigital. Check it out!

The problem with having a blog is it means adding another item to your to-do list! I used to diligently write blog posts regularly for a previous blog but lately find myself too busy.. Now that I keep a running commentary of news, thoughts and activities on Twitter it’s harder to take time out to pull a blog post together. Also I may already have written several blog posts that day in a ghost writing capacity and feel it’s healthier to escape my screen for a while, get outside, run around and absorb some vitamin D

Conclusion: Must practice what I preach and try harder!

That was just the morning I then dropped into @theipswichtap to check on preparations and to see the incredible Hog Roast, where @adrianmelrose was holding forth during one of his surgery sessions. All the time tweeting hello’s to other people around Suffolk enjoying various workshops.

Next up was the go-karting grand prix with agencies @v4technical, @craftedmedia @wearecondiment @shelton plus  “Team Riddell”, my team and… no, there were two team from @v4technical pro/ amateur! I’m not going to tell you who won because I’m pretty sure they were CHEATING!!

The evening ended spendidly with a scrumptious roasted hog ( thank you hog!) which Mike Keen from @theipswichtap had laboured over all day long – it was well worth it. After I said thanks to everyone for supporting the day mayhem ensued as Andrew, our secret comedian, entertained us before the fabulous Tom Sanderson Band took over..

I had a lot of fun and I hope everyone involved did too – here’s to the next one!

http://suffolk.twestival.com/

Slides from James Kindred @wearecondiment: http://www.slideshare.net/sketchybear/dont-think-of-a-camel

Slides from Crafted Media: http://www.slideshare.net/CraftedMedia/what-next-for-digital-search-mobile-the-rise-of-social-commerce

Photos from @claudib: http://www.flickr.com/photos/claudib/sets/72157626346163334/with/5557984593/

and @nickshore: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickrshore/sets/72157626227075095

Photos from Spring on Southwold Pier:  http://blog.springagency.co.uk/2011/03/3-girls-go-mad-in-a-photobooth/

Videos from the day on Youtube

Daily e-newspaper made up of your tweets: http://paper.li/TwestSuffolk

Cycling tweetup ride anyone? http://suffolkcyclesurgery.blogspot.com/2011/03/suffolk-tweet-ride.html

The Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds just carried out an admirable experiment. They invited people to sit-in on their final Dress Rehearsal for  their latest production “Dangerous Corner” and tweet. Live. To the Public. No rules or regulations.. no “please don’t say who dunnit”or “please don’t take photos” Instead they trusted complete strangers to come along, sit in their best seats, drink tea and tell the world what they thought about what they were doing in that very instant.

Now, we could have said “Bored, picking my nose…” or ” I wish the person to my left would stop texting, it’s most disturbing”. But no, with an equal smattering of Android, iphone and Blackberry devices we set to and commented on the action on stage, and the set, the decor, the costumes, the smoking, the language and the fantastic quotes from J.B Priestley.

The evening’s tweets can be viewed here: Dangerous Corner Twitter Stream

Whilst each twitterer has a unique take on what is unfolding on the stage, we’re talking to each other about it and still following the plot.. but it all falls silent when a certain character starts confessing all – suddenly our fingers are still and we’re waiting . . .

.. and I have to say the play was excellent and the cast unfaultable! I hadn’t seen it before but it is definitely one of those classic tales which remain as relevant today as ever.

So, big well done to all those involved – I really enjoyed it – I hope the Theatre Royal will continue this intrepid step into the world of Social Media, explore what it might bring to them and encourage more directors and actors to take the plunge… someone tweeting from backstage would have been fun!

Whether or not Theatres and Directors have realised, people are tweeting about them – at probably every performance, invited or not so, I admire this approach.

Tickets for “Dangerous Corners” 10th – 19th March are on sale now online at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds

My thanks to @ricgardner @chrisgrady @adrian_watson21 from @TheatreRoyalBSE and congratulations to @colinblumenau below for a fun evening!

This year’s event will be on 24th March – somewhere in Suffolk.. and we need to find a local charity to support.

If you are interested in being involved – lots of volunteers are needed to contribute ideas, promote the event, find a venue, find sponsors, provide entertainment (!) – (last year we had speakers and live music), blog, provide refreshments, find/ donate raffle prizes and be helpers on the day..PLEASE go to the Suffolk Twestival Facebook Page to register your interest.

Photos from last year and last year’s logo by Peter Dean:

I attended Le Web ’10 in Paris 8-9th December 2010, organised by Loic and Geraldine Le Meur ( seen here holding the Eiffel Tower this has become a bit of a tradition as I first attended Le Web when it was know as Les Blogs many years ago. Le Web is the biggest Euro-centric internet conference and I love meeting the many Europe based people – hearing the languages and hearing the latest news from the industry. With several stages and conference rooms Le Web has panels, speakers and workshops happening simultaneously along with a large space dedicated to Startups and another for partners/ sponsors.

This year I attended with the guys from Intruders.Tv who do a fab job of interviewing many of the key people from the event e.g. Dennis Crowley from Foursquare seen interviewed by the team here:

and Winners of the Startup Competition Waze (a social mobile application providing free turn-by-turn navigation based on the live conditions of the road).

I spent a whole afternoon in the Facebook workshops – I’d love the opportunity to do more of these – hearing what’s happening and why from the team behind the scenes at Facebook was pretty amazing, especially their stats on the impact of the LIKE button across European media sites. A very well spent few hours The workshops were totally oversubscribed so, Facebook – if you are listening, we’d love to run some of these in the UK!

Other highlights have to include the snow which fell at a phenomenal rate on the first day of the conference leaving the public transport system in complete disarray and many having to return to hotels on foot that evening… this (unbelievably) is the Les Tuileries mid-afternoon:

and of course just staying in Montmartre meant relaxing in a funky, gallic ambience with jazz.. and tapdancing!